You know the parlor trick.
wrap your arms around your own body
and from the back it looks like
someone is embracing you
her hands grasping your shirt
her fingernails teasing your neck
from the front it is another story
you never looked so alone
your crossed elbows and screwy grin
you could be waiting for a tailor
to fit you with a straight jacket
one that would hold you really tight.
wrap your arms around your own body
and from the back it looks like
someone is embracing you
her hands grasping your shirt
her fingernails teasing your neck
from the front it is another story
you never looked so alone
your crossed elbows and screwy grin
you could be waiting for a tailor
to fit you with a straight jacket
one that would hold you really tight.
Billy Collins
Billy Collins is a wonderful poet to discover. His apparently simple and artless meditations make us nod ruefully so often that we have to credit him with skill and subtlety. There are so many of his poems that occasion a wry grin or a raised eyebrow that he becomes one of the principal representatives of an age, this age, the age of the un-epic, of the suburban, or the anti-sublime.
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